A federal judge in Los Angeles has denied a request by the National Labor
Relations Board to force the Santa Barbara News-Press to rehire eight newsroom
employees discharged in 2007, according to a ruling made public Wednesday.

In an order signed May 21, U.S. District Court Judge Stephen V. Wilson held
that granting the injunction sought by James McDermott, the NLRB's Los
Angeles regional director, poses a significant risk of violating the First
Amendment rights of Ampersand Publishing LLC, parent company of the News-Press.

For more than a year, the newspaper has asserted in briefs, during NLRB
hearings and, most recently, before Judge Wilson that a campaign to unionize the
newsroom began with certain employees' desire to control the content of the
paper. That, according to A. Barry Cappello, managing partner of Cappello & Noel LLP and attorney for the paper, amounted to a violation of Ampersand's
constitutional rights.

William Kocol, an administrative law judge who heard an unfair labor
practices case against the paper last year and ultimately ruled in favor of the
union, found the First Amendment argument lacked merit.

But in his order, Judge Wilson holds that view "erroneous."

"In making this determination, the ALJ did not acknowledge that the union
campaign was not simply making general demands to restore journalistic
integrity, but making a specific demand related to the content of the News-Press,"
Judge Wilson reasoned.

Without the National Labor Relations Act "regime," the order notes, the
paper could retaliate against such actions through typical disciplinary means.

"The sought after injunction," Judge Wilson continues, "amounts to a state
action limiting (the paper's) ability to combat pressure placed on it to limit
its exercise of editorial discretion."

In his order, Judge Wilson states Ampersand is correct in asserting that
"employees' union-related activity had as a central demand the ceding of an
aspect of (the publisher's) editorial discretion."

The judge noted that at a union meeting on July 13, 2006, employees drafted
a letter to the paper in which their first demand was, "Restore journalism
ethics to the Santa Barbara News-Press: implement and maintain a clear
separation between the opinion/business side of the paper and the newsgathering side."

Judge Wilson held that this demand goes to the heart of Ampersand's
editorial discretion.

The judge highlighted the words of discharged reporter Melinda Burns, who,
during the unfair labor practice hearing last year, testified, "To keep its
credibility, a newsroom has to have independence from the editorial side of the
paper. . .and not be pressured by the publisher to report (the news) or
gather it in a certain way."

To this, Judge Wilson writes: "The quote makes clear what independently is
fairly obvious to the Court: the separation of the opinion/business side of
the paper and the newsgathering side is a demand related to control falling
within the publisher's editorial discretion."

Wendy McCaw, co-publisher of the News-Press, said Wednesday: "This is a
great day for the First Amendment and I salute Judge Wilson for upholding our
constitutional rights."

When reached for comment, Mr. Cappello stated: "As the News-Press has always
asserted, a careful review of the constitutional issues would result in
upholding all the actions it had taken. The Union's position has been completely
discredited. Some apologies are in order for the hysterical remarks of
various media pundits."

As part of its argument for the injunction, the NLRB urged Judge Wilson to
heed the opinion of Judge Kocol that there was no potential First Amendment
violation at stake and that the employees' effort to enforce a separation
between what they see as the two sides of the paper was protected union activity.

Judge Wilson, however, rejects "as clearly erroneous" the ALJ's view "that
the Union campaign was not, at least in part, aimed at forcing concessions
from (Ampersand) directly related to its exercise of editorial discretion."

In further analysis of the ALJ's findings in the 2007 hearing, Judge Wilson
notes that Judge Kocol determined no First Amendment matters were at issue
because, as Judge Kocol saw it, disciplinary action taken by the paper was not
rooted in Ampersand's desire to maintain editorial control "but merely by
general animus toward the Union."

"The Court finds this analysis highly problematic as it rests on a false
dichotomy," Judge Wilson writes. "The Union was organized, in part, to affect
Respondent's editorial discretion and undertook continual action to do so. It
therefore does not seem possible to parse, at least in the manner the ALJ
sought to do, Respondent's animus toward the Union generally from its desire to
protect its editorial discretion. The motives necessarily overlapped in this
case."

Ira Gottlieb, the attorney representing the workers, told the Associated
Press he was disappointed with the ruling and hoped the labor board would appeal
the decision.